Tapstream

Support

watchOS and Tapstream

Today is WWDC (World Wide Developer Conference), the annual mecca of the the Apple ecosystem to see what new plans Apple has in place for the next year.

One of the big announcements was a new Apple watchOS. This makes a ton of sense- it’s pretty easy to argue that the watch was never designed to be a peripheral device- the new OS finally gives it the tools it needs to succeed. Until now it was a horse and buggy where you phone was the horse. Today’s update to watchOS is powerful because it breaks the reigns and turns your buggy into an automobile.

Keep in mind the current limitations of the Apple Watch. The third-party app glances were the only third-party information available instantly to the watch user. If you needed anything else the watch had to invoke the app on your phone: for example, tapping on a glance or running the app on the watch would launch the app on the phone (delay), then the app would send data over bluetooth back to the watch (another delay). On top of that, the app’s watch UI was very limited and could not be interactive.

Until now, the watch has essentially been a second screen for your phone, a small outpost that requires the resources of the mothership to sustain itself. That’s all about to change. The new watchOS unlocks all sorts of functionality, so we finally feel like we are dealing with the wearable as it was intended.